In one of the previous articles this writer had stated that ‘Ishant Sharma’s ineffectual bowling is a major headache for Dhoni’. The way the third ODI panned out on Saturday at Chandigarh, the words also sound prophetic. If ever one over has changed the course of a one-day international completely, it had to be the 48th of the Australian innings that Ishant bowled. True James Faulkner played some brilliant strokes, but it is also a fact that the lanky India pacer allowed the all-rounder plenty of leeway to do so.
In the earlier games of the series, Ishant had clearly struggled because he persisted with short, wide and length deliveries. Since he was retained for this match, Indian fans could only have hoped that he had learnt from his mistakes. But, they were in for a shocker. When Ishant was handed the ball in the 48th winning position, but so bad was his performance that six balls later the match was completely out of the hosts’ grasp. It is hard to decipher that even after all these years, Ishant hasn’t learnt that yorkers and low full-tosses are the way to go in the slog overs.
While Ishant has been pathetic, in all three games India’s bowling has been rubbish. Agreed, things have become difficult to control owing to the new rules in place, but even taking that into consideration, India’s bowling has to be termed as abysmal. The death bowling is obviously their big concern. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been competent whenever he has bowled at the start of the innings but, just like Ishant, although to a lesser degree, he has struggled to keep the runs down in the last few overs whenever he has been tried.
R Vinay Kumar’s case isn’t too different. In fact, while he picks a few wickets at the top, he is expensive in most of his spells, lacking the kind of control desired of an international bowler. Similar to Ishant, even he is easy fodder for the opponents at the slog. Kumar runs in and lands the ball either at a length or very extremely short. With his lack of pace, these kinds of deliveries are not bound to trouble the batsmen. Further, most of his attempted yorkers turn out to be full-tosses. This weakness of his was evident in India’s loss at Mohali as Faulkner got under a full-toss to seal the win.
The most disappointing aspect of India’s bowling woes has been the fact that we are not talking about rookies. Ishant made his debut back in 2007 and Vinay Kumar has been around for more than a couple of seasons. Of the three pace bowlers discussed, only Bhuvneshwar can be termed as newcomer, but even he must start learning to bowl at the death sooner than later. With three games gone, some changes are needed in the bowling line-up. It might not guarantee victory, but the replacements, if there are any, can’t do any worse than Ishant and Vinay, can they?
--By A Cricket Analyst
